Paul Fox and Koray Melikoglu (eds.), Formal Investigations: Aesthetic Style in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Detective Fiction (Stuttgart: Ibidem, 2007). 239 pp. ISBN 9783898215930
This collection of essays seeks to establish the relationship between detective and crime fiction and aesthetic values during a particularly important developmental period for these types of fiction. We are all familiar with the creation and maturity of Sherlock Holmes during this period, and several articles here reconsider his role as an aesthete, a scientist, and a creation of realism. Holmes serves as a springboard for discussions of other, lesser-known detectives of this period. The aesthetic values of Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan (1894), Wilkie Collins's The Law and the Lady (1875), and Anna Katharine Green's The Leavenworth Case (1878) intermingle with the scientific and psychic approaches of Algernon Blackwood's The Centaur (1911), G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown series, and L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace's contributions to the Strand (1903) to reinforce the necessity of ‘aesthetic ordering within crime fiction' (Fox, iv). Beyond this relationship between the aesthetic and the scientific, the collection considers the feminization and domestication of detective fiction, which inevitably leads back to a discussion of Holmes's homosocial world, but also Mrs. Henry Wood's Johnny Ludlow series and various female detectives, including C.L. Pirkis's Loveday Brooke, George Sims's Dorcas Dene, and Grant Allen's Hilda Wade. Finally, the collection includes a discussion of the dissolution of crime fiction, in the form of the criminal aesthetes Dorian Gray and E.W. Hornung's A.J. Raffles, and also the modernist revision of detection fiction created in E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case (1913). The end result of such far-reaching approaches is a thorough investigation of authors' methodologies in regards to their creation and development of detective fiction.
This collection's contribution to the study of detective fiction is undeniable. The reconsideration of well-known authors and works provide truly new analysis of the individual's relationship to the genre. The discussion of those forgotten detective writers reminds us of their implementation of aesthetic values and their contribution to the development of the genre. The overall approach of contextualizing detective fiction leads to an understanding of both the literary genre and the time period in which it was developed.
The varied approaches and interests of the contributors to this collection made for an informative and enjoyable read, particularly regarding the lesser-known detectives of the period. Although the focus of the collection was the detective, a further examination of the criminal's relationship to the detective and the genre as a whole could have added an additional layer to this otherwise thorough consideration of detective fiction. A restructuring of the chapter order would have provided a simpler approach to this complicated topic, rather than the chronological and thematic jumping around presented here. Still, the material itself is thoroughly-researched and well-presented within the individual chapters, providing the reader both an introduction to and academic discussion of late-Victorian and Edwardian detective fiction.
Amanda Mordavsky Caleb (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
More details are available at the Ibidem Press website.